With the improved living standard and higher working strength, more and more people like to go outing in spare time, the griddle has advantages such as portable, safe, environmentally friendly, thus it has become one of the preferred cooking appliances carried by people when go outing. Generally, a griddle comprises an upper pan and a lower pan which are hinged together in their rear sides, in use, the food is disposed between the two pans and then be heated by the two pans at the same time, thus the food is cooked. The disadvantage of the griddle is that it only suits for cooking thin piece food, if the food is thick or is bulk, then the front side of the upper pan will inclined upwardly, and an angle is formed between the upper and lower pans thus the two pans is not parallel, therefore, the rear portion of the food will be grabbed tightly and is easy to be burned, and the front portion will be clamped loosely and is not easy to be cooked.
To overcome this problem, a griddle with adjustable space between upper and lower pans has been provided in prior art, and the main structure and principle of this griddle is that: a U-shaped pan support is configured in the lower pan, the rear ends of the two side rods of the pan support pivotally connected with the two rear corners of the lower pan respectively, and a handle is formed in the front rod, the middle portions of the two sides of the upper pan pivotally connected to the inner sides of the middle portions of the two side rods of the U-shaped pan support, the upper pan can rotate about the axis which is along the two hinged joints relative to the pan support. When the U-shaped pan support is rotated, the distance between the upper and lower pans is varied accordingly, but the upper and lower pans still can be maintained in parallel by the upper pan rotating relative to the U-shaped pan support. However, this griddle still has the following disadvantages: firstly, if the space between the upper and lower pans increased, although the upper and lower pans still can be maintained in parallel, but the upper pan offset backwardly with respect to the lower pan, the more space between the two pans, the more offset distance, i.e. the upper and lower pans can not been aligned in vertical direction; secondly, the upper pan can swing relative to the pan support, thus in practice the upper and lower pans are not easy to be adjusted in a completely parallel position; thirdly, friable food cannot be cooked because the weight of the upper pan will crush the food.
The inventor has applied a invention, titled as “a griddle with liftable top cover”, to China's State Intellectual Property Office, and the application number is CN200520125193. X, the griddle of the invention comprises an upper shell, a lower shell, an upper pan embedded on the bottom surface of the upper shell and a lower pan embedded on the top surface of the lower shell, the rear of the lower shell is equipped with a connecting block capable of upward and downward movement, the upper portion of the connecting block protruded to the upper of the lower shell and pivotally connected to the rear side of the upper pan, and the lower shell is also inwardly equipped with a lifting mechanism which connected to the connecting block and can drive the connecting block to move upwardly and downwardly. The space between the upper and lower pans can be adjusted by the lifting mechanism, however, the lifting mechanism has relatively complex structure and high manufacture cost and is easy to be broken down by the weight of the upper pan.